There are many gender differences in education, and this issue is one on that impacts male educators far more than their female counterparts. In fact, being a man in the modern K-12 school has a greater number of differing pressures than many realize. If a fight breaks out, who breaks it up, a male or female teacher? Who is tasked to coach more sports, whether they truly want to or not? When someone hears the word “disciplinarian,” is it not a male teacher or administrator they picture? But not every male is a disciplinarian, not every male can coach a sport, and definitely not every male wants to break up a fight. On that last point is where many problems arise, especially when that fight is between two females who are now utter taboo for a male educator to physically interact with. In a similar light, if a female student needs help from a male teacher before or after class, the teacher is often more concerned with how to appropriately handle that situation to avoid possible allegations than a way to help the student the most. Granted this dilemma exists for both genders, but the public perception of male educators has been damaged by media involvement in cases of very real but rare inappropriate relationships between male teachers and female students. These differences in what is expected and accepted between male and female educators have caused real problems in schools, and it is damaging to both the educators and the students.
In modern education, teachers are called to go beyond just the sharing of facts or formulas and to take on many other roles in the classroom. They are asked to be parents, mediators, coaches, counselors, and truly anything a student needs from them. With current media sensationalism, however, a fear has grown in the minds of many teachers – especially male teachers – that we must keep our students at an arm’s length. The decision making process that should consist only of finding what is best for the student has, in reality, been muddied and diluted by the question “what will get me in the least amount of trouble.” Instead of consoling, teachers compromise; instead of counseling, teachers are constrained by that ever present fear drilled into the back of their minds. The most important thing to educators has shifted from the individual student and his or her specific needs to simply keeping a job.
Trend or Issue
Society’s different expectations for men and women teachers have created some alarming disparities between different levels of education. U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show that in 2015, only 3.2% of pre-school and kindergarten teachers are male, compared to 19.3% in elementary and middle school and 40.8% in high school1. Male teachers are underrepresented at all three levels, but are almost non-existent in schools for students’ first several years. Michael Thompson, a psychologist, commented about male teachers in early childhood education, “If they are too nurturing or a mother comes in and sees a teacher reading in a chair and the child is leaning against the teacher or cuddling him, they freak out," he said. "Men tell me they only have to look in the mom's face to know what they are thinking." A male teacher recalled heavy scrutiny early in his career, “I would have literally four or five parents sitting at a table at a certain point in the year observing me, and it was nerve-wracking as an untenured teacher”2. With such a negative public perception, it’s easy to understand why male teachers so strongly gravitate towards higher levels of education where students are less likely to crave physical and verbal affection from teachers.
Because men are reluctant to teach at an early childhood educational level, this can create a void of male role models in the lives of children that might be too late to correct in their later years. Jeffrey MacDonald comments that, “Many children without a father at home crave a male presence in the predominantly female domain of elementary school”. With a U.S. Census Bureau study showing that 82.2% of custodial parents are mothers compared to 17.8% fathers3, it is clear that male teachers could be an invaluable asset in early childhood education. Any factor that drives males away from teaching at any level is a definite issue that needs to be addressed and corrected as soon as possible to give children from both genders positive role models in their lives. By the time children reach the secondary education level where male teachers are better represented, they’ve already gone through a lot of development, often with little or no experience with male role models.
Viewing the classroom and schools in general as a family unit, this is a huge problem that mirrors a larger problem in society in general: father figures are not present in a large percentage of students’ lives. With so many students going home to single mother-led homes, one would think that early childhood and elementary schools would be placing great value on male teachers to help supplement the lack of male leaders in students’ homes. The stigma of male teachers with children is in part preventing this from happening. There seems to be an academic consensus that, “Research shows that children who fail to have this balance in their lives are more likely to behave more aggressively, participate in illegal activities, abuse drugs or alcohol and do poorly in school. This is why it is so critical that there is both a female and male presence in the upbringing of a child, whether these people are related to the child or not”4. While the education system is unable to do much about students’ home lives, the presence of more male teachers could fill the void of positive male role models in the lives of many students.
Even at the secondary education level, where men, while still underrepresented, make up nearly half of the teaching demographic, there are some alarming statistics present. In a study of coaching tenures sponsored by the National Federation of State High School Associations, over 7,000 coaches and over 3,000 athletic directors were polled on a series of questions. In this study, 71.8% of the coach respondents were male and 84.6% of the athletic director respondents were male, despite the fact that males only account for 40.8% of high school teachers as mentioned earlier5. This seems to point towards a societal expectation of male teachers; they should coach sports. Balancing the rigors of being a full-time teacher and a high school coach can be very difficult. A local high school basketball coach, Devon Gilliam, discussed his typical work day by explaining, “My day typically starts at 6 a.m. and doesn't end until 9 or 10 o'clock at night”6. Teaching full time is a difficult, demanding job by itself, but when coaches are routinely working 15 or 16 hours per day during their particular sport’s season, getting burned out seems like an inevitability. The numbers clearly show that male high school teachers have a much greater expectation on them to coach than female teachers do.
With high profile sports like baseball, basketball, and football leading to lucrative amounts of money in both collegiate and professional sports, many teacher coaches view coaching as their primary job. Austell included in his study of Teacher Coaches (TCs), “This was noted in the drop in percentage of TCs devoting more time to teaching in the off-season 72% compared 34% during the season. Millslagle & Morley (2004) point out that while this data suggests that TCs do enjoy both roles of teaching and coaching, it will be teaching that is retreated from when a conflict arises, thus showing role retreatism.” Austell later surmises that, “Perhaps TCs must conform to the pressures and ideas of external groups in order to manage their identity more than non-coaching teachers. For some TCs, job security may depend primarily on coaching performance because TCs realize they are seldom fired for their performance in the classroom.” The idea that coaches for high profile sports teams with high profile athletes have more pressure to coach than to teach can be backed up by the money involved. “In 2010, the collective revenue of the 15 highest-grossing football programs in the United States was more than $1 billion”7. With such emphasis being placed on high school sports, male teachers who are pressured by expectations to coach might find themselves being viewed as a coach first rather than an educator. While this might be acceptable for men who go into education primarily to coach sports, for many men who want to focus on teaching, this might create a difficult situation where male teachers might actually place their job in jeopardy for focusing on their primary duty – teaching – rather than coaching. At the same time, when teachers are given such high expectations from federal and state agencies and from local school boards and principals, it seems very difficult to excel at two demanding roles at the same time.
Public perception of male educators comes down to this perfectly worded quote from a male elementary teacher: “If you're a man, you must be a coach or a pedophile. Why on earth would any male become a teacher otherwise?” This teacher is not afraid to tell his kids he loves them. He knows that students need affection to both grow as individuals and bond as a class. He also knows, however, that affection is dangerous. Parents, friends, and colleagues all warn against it. Affection should never be dangerous. Teachers are meant to love and care for their students, but we are taught to refrain and distance ourselves to the point that we are no longer human to those students who need, more than anything, a person who honestly cares about them above all else8.
To read a proposal focused on this wiki's topic, please download this document:
1. "Data About Men Teachers". This source shows the percentage of male educators in various fields per year, from 2002 - 2015.
2. Susan Donaldson James. "Why Men Don't Teach Elementary School". March 25, 2013. The journalist for this article spoke to a male elementary teacher who began his career as the only male classroom teacher at his school. He discusses stereotypes of male educators, issues he has had with parents, and the importance of male influence on young boys.
8. "Teaching Humanities Without Being Human". May 19, 2017. The writer for this post is a male high school teacher who has experienced gender inequality in the workplace. He believes in the importance of affection from educators but describes various pressures put on him from friends, parents, and colleagues. Overview There are many gender differences in education, and this issue is one on that impacts male educators far more than their female counterparts. In fact, being a man in the modern K-12 school has a greater number of differing pressures than many realize. If a fight breaks out, who breaks it up, a male or female teacher? Who is tasked to coach more sports, whether they truly want to or not? When someone hears the word “disciplinarian,” is it not a male teacher or administrator they picture? But not every male is a disciplinarian, not every male can coach a sport, and definitely not every male wants to break up a fight. On that last point is where many problems arise, especially when that fight is between two females who are now utter taboo for a male educator to physically interact with. In a similar light, if a female student needs help from a male teacher before or after class, the teacher is often more concerned with how to appropriately handle that situation to avoid possible allegations than a way to help the student the most. Granted this dilemma exists for both genders, but the public perception of male educators has been desecrated by the media bombardment involving cases of very real but rare inappropriate relationships between male teachers and female students. These differences in what is expected and accepted between male and female educators have caused real problems in schools, and it is damaging to both the educators and the students. In modern education, teachers are called to go beyond just the sharing of facts or formulas and to take on many other roles in the classroom. They are asked to be parents, mediators, coaches, counselors, and truly anything a student needs from them. With current media sensationalism, however, a fear has grown in the minds of many teachers – especially male teachers – that we must keep our students at an arm’s length. The decision making process that should consist only of finding what is best for the student has, in reality, been muddied and diluted by the question “what will get me in the least amount of trouble.” Instead of consoling, teachers compromise; instead of counseling, teachers are constrained by that ever present fear drilled into the back of their minds. The most important thing to educators has shifted from the individual student and his or her specific needs to simply keeping a job.
Trend or Issue
Society’s different expectations for men and women teachers have created some alarming disparities between different levels of education. U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show that in 2015, only 3.2% of pre-school and kindergarten teachers are male, compared to 19.3% in elementary and middle school and 40.8% in high school. (http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers) Male teachers are underrepresented at all three levels, but are almost non-existent in schools for students’ first several years. Michael Thompson, a psychologist, commented about male teachers in early childhood education, “If they are too nurturing or a mother comes in and sees a teacher reading in a chair and the child is leaning against the teacher or cuddling him, they freak out," he said. "Men tell me they only have to look in the mom's face to know what they are thinking." A male teacher recalled heavy scrutiny early in his career, “I would have literally four or five parents sitting at a table at a certain point in the year observing me, and it was nerve-wracking as an untenured teacher.” (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/men-teach-elementary-school/story?id=18784172) With such a negative public perception, it’s easy to understand why male teachers so strongly gravitate towards higher levels of education where students are less likely to crave physical and verbal affection from teachers. Because men are reluctant to teach at an early childhood educational level, this can create a void of male role models in the lives of children that might be too late to correct in their later years. Jeffrey MacDonald comments that, “Many children without a father at home crave a male presence in the predominantly female domain of elementary school”. With a U.S. Census Bureau study showing that 82.2% of custodial parents are mothers compared to 17.8% fathers (https://www.thespruce.com/single-parent-census-data-2997668), it is clear that male teachers could be an invaluable asset in early childhood education. Any factor that drives males away from teaching at any level is a definite issue that needs to be addressed and corrected as soon as possible to give children from both genders positive role models in their lives. By the time children reach the secondary education level where male teachers are better represented, they’ve already gone through a lot of development, often with little or no experience with male role models.
Viewing the classroom and schools in general as a family unit, this is a huge problem that mirrors a larger problem in society in general: father figures are not present in a large percentage of students’ lives. With so many students going home to single mother-led homes, one would think that early childhood and elementary schools would be placing great value on male teachers to help supplement the lack of male leaders in students’ homes. The stigma of male teachers with children is in part preventing this from happening. There seems to be an academic consensus that, “Research shows that children who fail to have this balance in their lives are more likely to behave more aggressively, participate in illegal activities, abuse drugs or alcohol and do poorly in school. This is why it is so critical that there is both a female and male presence in the upbringing of a child, whether these people are related to the child or not.” (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-positive-male-role-models-vital-childs-jack-perry-jr-) While the education system is unable to do much about students’ home lives, the presence of more male teachers could fill the void of positive male role models in the lives of many students.
Even at the secondary education level, where men, while still underrepresented, make up nearly half of the teaching demographic, there are some alarming statistics present. In a study of coaching tenures sponsored by the National Federation of State High School Associations, over 7,000 coaches and over 3,000 athletic directors were polled on a series of questions. In this study, 71.8% of the coach respondents were male and 84.6% of the athletic director respondents were male (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ794473.pdf), despite the fact that males only account for 40.8% of high school teachers as mentioned earlier. This seems to point towards a societal expectation of male teachers; they should coach sports. Balancing the rigors of being a full-time teacher and a high school coach can be very difficult. A local high school basketball coach, Devon Gilliam, discussed his typical work day by explaining, “My day typically starts at 6 a.m. and doesn't end until 9 or 10 o'clock at night.” (http://www.mlive.com/sports/bay-city/index.ssf/2012/05/called_to_coach.html) Teaching full time is a difficult, demanding job by itself, but when coaches are routinely working 15 or 16 hours per day during their particular sport’s season, getting burned out seems like an inevitability. The numbers clearly show that male high school teachers have a much greater expectation on them to coach than female teachers do.
With high profile sports like baseball, basketball, and football leading to lucrative amounts of money in both collegiate and professional sports, many teacher coaches view coaching as their primary job. Austell noted in his study of Teacher Coaches (TCs), “This was noted in the drop in percentage of TCs devoting more time to teaching in the off-season 72% compared 34% during the season (Millslagle & Morley 2004). Millslagle & Morley (2004) point out that while this data suggests that TCs do enjoy both roles of teaching and coaching, it will be teaching that is retreated from when a conflict arises, thus showing role retreatism.” Austell later surmises that, “Perhaps TCs must conform to the pressures and ideas of external groups in order to manage their identity more than non-coaching teachers. For some TCs, job security may depend primarily on coaching performance because TCs realize they are seldom fired for their performance in the classroom (Figone, 1994; O’Connor & MacDonald, 2002; Millslagle & Morley, 2004; Sage 1987).” The idea that coaches for high profile sports teams with high profile athletes have more pressure to coach than to teach can be backed up by the money involved. “In 2010, the collective revenue of the 15 highest-grossing football programs in the United States was more than $1 billion” (http://finance.zacks.com/much-money-college-sports-generate-10346.html). With such emphasis being placed on high school sports, male teachers who are pressured by expectations to coach might find themselves being viewed as a coach first rather than an educator. While this might be acceptable for men who go into education primarily to coach sports, for many men who want to focus on teaching, this might create a difficult situation where male teachers might actually place their job in jeopardy for focusing on their primary duty – teaching – rather than coaching. At the same time, teachers are given such high expectations from federal and state agencies and from local school boards and principals, it seems very difficult to excel at two demanding roles at the same time. Public perception of male educators comes down to this perfectly worded quote from a male elementary teacher: “If you're a man, you must be a coach or a pedophile. Why on earth would any male become a teacher otherwise?” This teacher is not afraid to tell his kids he loves them. He knows that students need affection to both grow as individuals and bond as a class. He also knows, however, that affection is dangerous. Parents, friends, and colleagues all warn against it. Affection should never be dangerous. Teachers are meant to love and care for their students, but we are taught to refrain and distance ourselves to the point that we are no longer human to those students who need, more than anything, a person who honestly cares about them above all else (http://imgur.com/gallery/jPVtQ).
Overview
There are many gender differences in education, and this issue is one on that impacts male educators far more than their female counterparts. In fact, being a man in the modern K-12 school has a greater number of differing pressures than many realize. If a fight breaks out, who breaks it up, a male or female teacher? Who is tasked to coach more sports, whether they truly want to or not? When someone hears the word “disciplinarian,” is it not a male teacher or administrator they picture? But not every male is a disciplinarian, not every male can coach a sport, and definitely not every male wants to break up a fight. On that last point is where many problems arise, especially when that fight is between two females who are now utter taboo for a male educator to physically interact with. In a similar light, if a female student needs help from a male teacher before or after class, the teacher is often more concerned with how to appropriately handle that situation to avoid possible allegations than a way to help the student the most. Granted this dilemma exists for both genders, but the public perception of male educators has been damaged by media involvement in cases of very real but rare inappropriate relationships between male teachers and female students. These differences in what is expected and accepted between male and female educators have caused real problems in schools, and it is damaging to both the educators and the students.
In modern education, teachers are called to go beyond just the sharing of facts or formulas and to take on many other roles in the classroom. They are asked to be parents, mediators, coaches, counselors, and truly anything a student needs from them. With current media sensationalism, however, a fear has grown in the minds of many teachers – especially male teachers – that we must keep our students at an arm’s length. The decision making process that should consist only of finding what is best for the student has, in reality, been muddied and diluted by the question “what will get me in the least amount of trouble.” Instead of consoling, teachers compromise; instead of counseling, teachers are constrained by that ever present fear drilled into the back of their minds. The most important thing to educators has shifted from the individual student and his or her specific needs to simply keeping a job.
Trend or Issue
Society’s different expectations for men and women teachers have created some alarming disparities between different levels of education. U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show that in 2015, only 3.2% of pre-school and kindergarten teachers are male, compared to 19.3% in elementary and middle school and 40.8% in high school1. Male teachers are underrepresented at all three levels, but are almost non-existent in schools for students’ first several years. Michael Thompson, a psychologist, commented about male teachers in early childhood education, “If they are too nurturing or a mother comes in and sees a teacher reading in a chair and the child is leaning against the teacher or cuddling him, they freak out," he said. "Men tell me they only have to look in the mom's face to know what they are thinking." A male teacher recalled heavy scrutiny early in his career, “I would have literally four or five parents sitting at a table at a certain point in the year observing me, and it was nerve-wracking as an untenured teacher”2. With such a negative public perception, it’s easy to understand why male teachers so strongly gravitate towards higher levels of education where students are less likely to crave physical and verbal affection from teachers.
Because men are reluctant to teach at an early childhood educational level, this can create a void of male role models in the lives of children that might be too late to correct in their later years. Jeffrey MacDonald comments that, “Many children without a father at home crave a male presence in the predominantly female domain of elementary school”. With a U.S. Census Bureau study showing that 82.2% of custodial parents are mothers compared to 17.8% fathers3, it is clear that male teachers could be an invaluable asset in early childhood education. Any factor that drives males away from teaching at any level is a definite issue that needs to be addressed and corrected as soon as possible to give children from both genders positive role models in their lives. By the time children reach the secondary education level where male teachers are better represented, they’ve already gone through a lot of development, often with little or no experience with male role models.
Viewing the classroom and schools in general as a family unit, this is a huge problem that mirrors a larger problem in society in general: father figures are not present in a large percentage of students’ lives. With so many students going home to single mother-led homes, one would think that early childhood and elementary schools would be placing great value on male teachers to help supplement the lack of male leaders in students’ homes. The stigma of male teachers with children is in part preventing this from happening. There seems to be an academic consensus that, “Research shows that children who fail to have this balance in their lives are more likely to behave more aggressively, participate in illegal activities, abuse drugs or alcohol and do poorly in school. This is why it is so critical that there is both a female and male presence in the upbringing of a child, whether these people are related to the child or not”4. While the education system is unable to do much about students’ home lives, the presence of more male teachers could fill the void of positive male role models in the lives of many students.
Even at the secondary education level, where men, while still underrepresented, make up nearly half of the teaching demographic, there are some alarming statistics present. In a study of coaching tenures sponsored by the National Federation of State High School Associations, over 7,000 coaches and over 3,000 athletic directors were polled on a series of questions. In this study, 71.8% of the coach respondents were male and 84.6% of the athletic director respondents were male, despite the fact that males only account for 40.8% of high school teachers as mentioned earlier5. This seems to point towards a societal expectation of male teachers; they should coach sports. Balancing the rigors of being a full-time teacher and a high school coach can be very difficult. A local high school basketball coach, Devon Gilliam, discussed his typical work day by explaining, “My day typically starts at 6 a.m. and doesn't end until 9 or 10 o'clock at night”6. Teaching full time is a difficult, demanding job by itself, but when coaches are routinely working 15 or 16 hours per day during their particular sport’s season, getting burned out seems like an inevitability. The numbers clearly show that male high school teachers have a much greater expectation on them to coach than female teachers do.
With high profile sports like baseball, basketball, and football leading to lucrative amounts of money in both collegiate and professional sports, many teacher coaches view coaching as their primary job. Austell included in his study of Teacher Coaches (TCs), “This was noted in the drop in percentage of TCs devoting more time to teaching in the off-season 72% compared 34% during the season. Millslagle & Morley (2004) point out that while this data suggests that TCs do enjoy both roles of teaching and coaching, it will be teaching that is retreated from when a conflict arises, thus showing role retreatism.” Austell later surmises that, “Perhaps TCs must conform to the pressures and ideas of external groups in order to manage their identity more than non-coaching teachers. For some TCs, job security may depend primarily on coaching performance because TCs realize they are seldom fired for their performance in the classroom.” The idea that coaches for high profile sports teams with high profile athletes have more pressure to coach than to teach can be backed up by the money involved. “In 2010, the collective revenue of the 15 highest-grossing football programs in the United States was more than $1 billion”7. With such emphasis being placed on high school sports, male teachers who are pressured by expectations to coach might find themselves being viewed as a coach first rather than an educator. While this might be acceptable for men who go into education primarily to coach sports, for many men who want to focus on teaching, this might create a difficult situation where male teachers might actually place their job in jeopardy for focusing on their primary duty – teaching – rather than coaching. At the same time, when teachers are given such high expectations from federal and state agencies and from local school boards and principals, it seems very difficult to excel at two demanding roles at the same time.
Public perception of male educators comes down to this perfectly worded quote from a male elementary teacher: “If you're a man, you must be a coach or a pedophile. Why on earth would any male become a teacher otherwise?” This teacher is not afraid to tell his kids he loves them. He knows that students need affection to both grow as individuals and bond as a class. He also knows, however, that affection is dangerous. Parents, friends, and colleagues all warn against it. Affection should never be dangerous. Teachers are meant to love and care for their students, but we are taught to refrain and distance ourselves to the point that we are no longer human to those students who need, more than anything, a person who honestly cares about them above all else8.
To read a proposal focused on this wiki's topic, please download this document:
Annotated Bibliography
1. "Data About Men Teachers". This source shows the percentage of male educators in various fields per year, from 2002 - 2015.2. Susan Donaldson James. "Why Men Don't Teach Elementary School". March 25, 2013. The journalist for this article spoke to a male elementary teacher who began his career as the only male classroom teacher at his school. He discusses stereotypes of male educators, issues he has had with parents, and the importance of male influence on young boys.
4. Jack Perry, Jr. "Why Positive Male Role Models are Vital to a Child's Development". March 9, 2015. This article stresses the importance of male role models for children, especially due to the increase in children growing up in single parent households, primarily without a father figure.
5. Glenn A. Miller, Fafer Lutz, Jaeho Shim, Karen Fredenburg, John Miller. (2006). "Who is coaching, and why are they dismissed?" Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance 77, 7, 40-45. This study shows the percentage of male high school coaches vs female high school coaches. It included demographic statistics for both coaches and sports.
6. Corey Butzin. "Called to Coach: High school coaches put in the time (Part II)". May 12, 2012. The journalist for this article interviewed coaches around the area. They describe just how demanding coaching is, and how it can take their time away from the classroom.
7. "How Much do College Sports Generate?" This article discusses the amount of money collegiate athletic programs cost and generate.
8. "Teaching Humanities Without Being Human". May 19, 2017. The writer for this post is a male high school teacher who has experienced gender inequality in the workplace. He believes in the importance of affection from educators but describes various pressures put on him from friends, parents, and colleagues.
Overview
There are many gender differences in education, and this issue is one on that impacts male educators far more than their female counterparts. In fact, being a man in the modern K-12 school has a greater number of differing pressures than many realize. If a fight breaks out, who breaks it up, a male or female teacher? Who is tasked to coach more sports, whether they truly want to or not? When someone hears the word “disciplinarian,” is it not a male teacher or administrator they picture? But not every male is a disciplinarian, not every male can coach a sport, and definitely not every male wants to break up a fight. On that last point is where many problems arise, especially when that fight is between two females who are now utter taboo for a male educator to physically interact with. In a similar light, if a female student needs help from a male teacher before or after class, the teacher is often more concerned with how to appropriately handle that situation to avoid possible allegations than a way to help the student the most. Granted this dilemma exists for both genders, but the public perception of male educators has been desecrated by the media bombardment involving cases of very real but rare inappropriate relationships between male teachers and female students. These differences in what is expected and accepted between male and female educators have caused real problems in schools, and it is damaging to both the educators and the students.
In modern education, teachers are called to go beyond just the sharing of facts or formulas and to take on many other roles in the classroom. They are asked to be parents, mediators, coaches, counselors, and truly anything a student needs from them. With current media sensationalism, however, a fear has grown in the minds of many teachers – especially male teachers – that we must keep our students at an arm’s length. The decision making process that should consist only of finding what is best for the student has, in reality, been muddied and diluted by the question “what will get me in the least amount of trouble.” Instead of consoling, teachers compromise; instead of counseling, teachers are constrained by that ever present fear drilled into the back of their minds. The most important thing to educators has shifted from the individual student and his or her specific needs to simply keeping a job.
Trend or Issue
Society’s different expectations for men and women teachers have created some alarming disparities between different levels of education. U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show that in 2015, only 3.2% of pre-school and kindergarten teachers are male, compared to 19.3% in elementary and middle school and 40.8% in high school. (http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers) Male teachers are underrepresented at all three levels, but are almost non-existent in schools for students’ first several years. Michael Thompson, a psychologist, commented about male teachers in early childhood education, “If they are too nurturing or a mother comes in and sees a teacher reading in a chair and the child is leaning against the teacher or cuddling him, they freak out," he said. "Men tell me they only have to look in the mom's face to know what they are thinking." A male teacher recalled heavy scrutiny early in his career, “I would have literally four or five parents sitting at a table at a certain point in the year observing me, and it was nerve-wracking as an untenured teacher.” (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/men-teach-elementary-school/story?id=18784172) With such a negative public perception, it’s easy to understand why male teachers so strongly gravitate towards higher levels of education where students are less likely to crave physical and verbal affection from teachers.
Because men are reluctant to teach at an early childhood educational level, this can create a void of male role models in the lives of children that might be too late to correct in their later years. Jeffrey MacDonald comments that, “Many children without a father at home crave a male presence in the predominantly female domain of elementary school”. With a U.S. Census Bureau study showing that 82.2% of custodial parents are mothers compared to 17.8% fathers (https://www.thespruce.com/single-parent-census-data-2997668), it is clear that male teachers could be an invaluable asset in early childhood education. Any factor that drives males away from teaching at any level is a definite issue that needs to be addressed and corrected as soon as possible to give children from both genders positive role models in their lives. By the time children reach the secondary education level where male teachers are better represented, they’ve already gone through a lot of development, often with little or no experience with male role models.
Viewing the classroom and schools in general as a family unit, this is a huge problem that mirrors a larger problem in society in general: father figures are not present in a large percentage of students’ lives. With so many students going home to single mother-led homes, one would think that early childhood and elementary schools would be placing great value on male teachers to help supplement the lack of male leaders in students’ homes. The stigma of male teachers with children is in part preventing this from happening. There seems to be an academic consensus that, “Research shows that children who fail to have this balance in their lives are more likely to behave more aggressively, participate in illegal activities, abuse drugs or alcohol and do poorly in school. This is why it is so critical that there is both a female and male presence in the upbringing of a child, whether these people are related to the child or not.” (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-positive-male-role-models-vital-childs-jack-perry-jr-) While the education system is unable to do much about students’ home lives, the presence of more male teachers could fill the void of positive male role models in the lives of many students.
Even at the secondary education level, where men, while still underrepresented, make up nearly half of the teaching demographic, there are some alarming statistics present. In a study of coaching tenures sponsored by the National Federation of State High School Associations, over 7,000 coaches and over 3,000 athletic directors were polled on a series of questions. In this study, 71.8% of the coach respondents were male and 84.6% of the athletic director respondents were male (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ794473.pdf), despite the fact that males only account for 40.8% of high school teachers as mentioned earlier. This seems to point towards a societal expectation of male teachers; they should coach sports. Balancing the rigors of being a full-time teacher and a high school coach can be very difficult. A local high school basketball coach, Devon Gilliam, discussed his typical work day by explaining, “My day typically starts at 6 a.m. and doesn't end until 9 or 10 o'clock at night.” (http://www.mlive.com/sports/bay-city/index.ssf/2012/05/called_to_coach.html) Teaching full time is a difficult, demanding job by itself, but when coaches are routinely working 15 or 16 hours per day during their particular sport’s season, getting burned out seems like an inevitability. The numbers clearly show that male high school teachers have a much greater expectation on them to coach than female teachers do.
With high profile sports like baseball, basketball, and football leading to lucrative amounts of money in both collegiate and professional sports, many teacher coaches view coaching as their primary job. Austell noted in his study of Teacher Coaches (TCs), “This was noted in the drop in percentage of TCs devoting more time to teaching in the off-season 72% compared 34% during the season (Millslagle & Morley 2004). Millslagle & Morley (2004) point out that while this data suggests that TCs do enjoy both roles of teaching and coaching, it will be teaching that is retreated from when a conflict arises, thus showing role retreatism.” Austell later surmises that, “Perhaps TCs must conform to the pressures and ideas of external groups in order to manage their identity more than non-coaching teachers. For some TCs, job security may depend primarily on coaching performance because TCs realize they are seldom fired for their performance in the classroom (Figone, 1994; O’Connor & MacDonald, 2002; Millslagle & Morley, 2004; Sage 1987).” The idea that coaches for high profile sports teams with high profile athletes have more pressure to coach than to teach can be backed up by the money involved. “In 2010, the collective revenue of the 15 highest-grossing football programs in the United States was more than $1 billion” (http://finance.zacks.com/much-money-college-sports-generate-10346.html). With such emphasis being placed on high school sports, male teachers who are pressured by expectations to coach might find themselves being viewed as a coach first rather than an educator. While this might be acceptable for men who go into education primarily to coach sports, for many men who want to focus on teaching, this might create a difficult situation where male teachers might actually place their job in jeopardy for focusing on their primary duty – teaching – rather than coaching. At the same time, teachers are given such high expectations from federal and state agencies and from local school boards and principals, it seems very difficult to excel at two demanding roles at the same time.
Public perception of male educators comes down to this perfectly worded quote from a male elementary teacher: “If you're a man, you must be a coach or a pedophile. Why on earth would any male become a teacher otherwise?” This teacher is not afraid to tell his kids he loves them. He knows that students need affection to both grow as individuals and bond as a class. He also knows, however, that affection is dangerous. Parents, friends, and colleagues all warn against it. Affection should never be dangerous. Teachers are meant to love and care for their students, but we are taught to refrain and distance ourselves to the point that we are no longer human to those students who need, more than anything, a person who honestly cares about them above all else (http://imgur.com/gallery/jPVtQ).
Sources:
http://imgur.com/gallery/jPVtQ
http://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifestyle/male-teachers-wary-of-hugging-students/
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0715/p13s01-lecl.html
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/jun/09/schools.uk
https://www.thespruce.com/single-parent-census-data-2997668
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/20/more-teachers-are-having-sex-with-their-students-heres-how-schools-can-stop-them/?utm_term=.6256ad3715ab
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/men-teach-elementary-school/story?id=18784172
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ794473.pdf
http://www.mlive.com/sports/bay-city/index.ssf/2012/05/called_to_coach.html
http://finance.zacks.com/much-money-college-sports-generate-10346.html
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100001024
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-positive-male-role-models-vital-childs-jack-perry-jr-
against: http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/1091935/no-touching-kids-policies-for-teachers
scientific: http://cpr.indiana.edu/uploads/2007AIRGenderGaps.pdf
http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3096&context=dissertations